Fundamental Onion Paste

Along with the BIR base sauce, this is another fundamental requirement for creating UK restaurant style curry at home.

Ingredients:

2 BIG white onions 4 cloves garlic 3tbs vegetable oil Pinch of cumin

Method:

1. Chop the onion and garlic and then put into a blender. Add just enough water to get the blender going, you don't want it too wet as it'll take forever to cook it out of the paste. 2. Heat the oil in a pan on a high heat (not smoking, just hot). Chuck in the mix. It’s going to spit and crack like crazy!! Don’t worry, just keep stirring. 3. Keep on stirring and reduce this down until it gets dryer then add the cumin and continue frying at a lower heat until it turns into what looks a bit like pizza dough. This takes a while and you have to keep on stirring gently so that it doesn’t burn. If you burn it…it’s gone – start again! 4. Once you have the final product, taste it, it doesn’t taste all that great. Sort of soapy. But that’s good…that is how it’s meant to taste. This paste makes a HUGE difference to the end product. Guard it’s secret jealously!

This entry was posted by Shane Hard on Monday, July 4, 2011 at and is filed under Birrecipes. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

I did this step by step and the finished product does have that soapy taste but it has a very strong green texture.

Will try it in a curry later anyway and see how i get on

Thanks
Ozan

On Mon 3rd Dec 12
Shane (The Curry Sauce) said...
Hi Ozan,

Dont worry about the green, we had that as well a few times.

Let us know how you get on.

Cheers

Shane

On Sat 2nd Mar 13
Steve said...
Can you freeze the onion paste?

On Sat 2nd Mar 13
Shane (The Curry Sauce) said...
Hi Steve,

As already stated in the comments this freezes fine.

Cheers,

Shane

On Mon 1st Jul 13
Paul Calway said...
Hi, this looks great. I have one question though, does this paste freeze well, or is it better prepared fresh each time? Thanks.

On Mon 1st Jul 13
Shane (The Curry Sauce) said...
Hi Paul,

Yes you can freeze the paste. Just cook it through a little longer when you put it in if its only recently been defrosted to make sure it cooks through.

Cheers,

Shane

On Tue 29th Oct 13
richard said...
hi how much of this will go into a curry serving please?

On Tue 29th Oct 13
Shane said...
Hi Richard,

I responded to your other comment on the main BIR recipe page.

Cheers,

Shane

On Sat 17th May 14
Fazal said...
Thanks for the secret recipe ....

On Mon 28th Dec 15
Guster said...
I read on another site that you should never put raw onion in a blender because it will go bitter (apparently). Something to do with the onions releasing sulphur. Instead you should cook the chopped or sliced onion prior to blending. Anyone else heard of this?